John Zorn

“I have about two or three people, we don't have an office, we don't even have a dedicated phone line. We do it out of our own homes, and we make it work.”

“It's a matter of keeping people on a spontaneous edge.”

“I put together the influences of my life in as clear a way as I possibly can, in the same way that Beethoven or Schoenberg or Bach put their influences together.”

“Man, Dick Dale shreds. He's welcomed to anybody's bar mitzvah.”

“I create work, and I devote myself to the creative process, and I try to, you know, stay pure in that process and be worthy of the messages that I receive.”

“I run around, I listen to a lot of music, go to a lot of concerts. And when I see someone that gases me, I try to go out of my way to involve them somehow in what I'm doing or get involved in what they're doing.”

“I'm getting ready to write a piece now, and it's been six months thinking about it, changing the instrumentation, changing the name, doing more reading.”

“If someone is a straight jazzhead, or a straight metalhead, or straight classical, they have a very narrow range of what they allow into their lives. But the people who listen to what we put out into the world have to be open-minded. Because we're so pluralist.”

“I started the label Tzadik to support an entire community of musicians, not just Jewish musicians. But the radical Jewish culture movement was begun in a lot of ways because I wanted to take the idea that Jewish music equals 'klezmer' and expand it to, 'Well, Jewish music could be a lot more than that.'”

“Each record in the 'Book of Angels' series is meant to be unique in terms of the compositions.”

“When I'm writing, sometimes it gets to that place where I feel like the piece is writing itself and I'm trying not to get in the way.”

“Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.”

“I used to look at composing music as problem solving. But as I get older, it's not about problem solving anymore. There are no solutions, because there are no problems. You just turn the tap and it flows out.”

“It's a blast to watch. It's a lot more interesting live than it is on record. I mean, it really is a theatrical event. It's a sporting event! Cause you never know what's gonna happen.”

“Music is about people for me. It's not about sounds. It's about people; it's about putting people into challenging situations. And for me, challenges are opportunities.”

“One thing that I do ask myself when I'm in the creative process is, 'Does the world need this?'”

“I'm not striving for happiness, I'm trying to get some work done. And sometimes the best work is done under doubt. Constantly rethinking and re-evaluating what you're doing, working and working until it's finished.”

“As soon as you get a certain amount of attention, then everybody kinda wants to start taking pot shots at you. All your old friends that supported you don't support you any more.”

“You can't be idealistic in this world and not be crazy.”

“That's where I began to ask questions that maybe don't have one specific answer. And the more people you get answers from, the richer the environment becomes.”